A Wedding To Remember
Emma Darcy

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

AS SHE MADE her first morning cup of coffee, Joanna Harding totted the days up in her mind. Four gone, nine to go. Today was Friday. A week tomorrow was the deadline. Before Brad flew back to Sydney from his conference in Brisbane, she had to decide whether to marry him or not.

Joanna sat down at the table in her mother’s kitchen and hunched over her coffee mug, berating herself for not being clear-minded about the future Brad was offering her. There should be no question about what she wanted. Brad was everything Rory Grayson wasn’t, yet her failed marriage to Rory cast long, haunting shadows that still affected her.

It was not her fault the marriage had failed. The blame lay fairly and squarely on Rory’s head. And another part of his anatomy. It was absurd and self-defeating to let his failure cloud her future.

Three years had passed since she had separated from Rory. She had told her ex-husband on the day of their divorce, two years ago, and she had told herself repeatedly since then, that she would never see him again. She did not want Rory Grayson to take up another second of her life.

Wanting, however, was one thing, reality quite another. It was as though Rory sat on her shoulder, a white angel who dimmed the attraction of any other man she met, or a dark angel who reminded her of the black pits an intimate relationship could lead her into. It did not seem to matter that her love for him had been crushed under the unforgivable weight of what had happened.

The dust of it still clung around her heart, taunting her with the loss of its substance.

“Do you have any plans for today, Joanna?” her mother asked as she carried her habitual boiled egg and toast breakfast to the table.

Today was the day to blow the dust of Rory Grayson away, Joanna decided. She needed to rid herself of it. Rory had to be buried in a final resting place. If she saw him again and felt nothing, if he left her completely cold, then she could go ahead and accept Brad’s proposal, and marry him with a free heart. No hangovers from the past. No regrets. Nothing to spoil her happiness.

“I might give Poppy Dalton a call,” she answered her mother. “See if she wants to take in a movie or look around the shops in the city.”

It was a safe reply, and she might well spend part of the day with her friend and fellow teacher. It also avoided any mention of Rory. There was nothing to be gained in sparking off an unpleasant and totally unnecessary scene with her mother.

As far as Fay Harding was concerned, the worst thing Joanna had ever done was to marry Rory Grayson, and the best thing she had ever done was divorce him, vindicating Fay’s deep and abiding disapproval of him. Right from the start Rory had earned that disapproval by flouting or mocking the rules Fay held dear. Which, of course, had been one of his strong attractions to Joanna, who had bridled against those very same rules all her young life.

Was it rebellion that had drawn her to link her life with Rory’s? A heady sense of freedom from all the constrictions of convention? She had believed she had found her true soul mate in Rory, but it hadn’t turned out that way.

To Joanna’s mind, no matter what the stresses and strains in a marriage, nothing, absolutely nothing, excused adultery. Particularly when that adultery was proven, beyond any possible belief in Rory’s denials, by the other woman’s pregnancy. It made no difference that the pregnancy was eventually terminated by a miscarriage. The betrayal went too deep for Joanna to ever accept Rory back as her husband.

“You must be missing Brad,” her mother remarked, a fondly hopeful note in her voice. As a marriage prospect for her daughter, Brad Latham had Fay Harding’s gold-star approval. “It’s such a pity he has to be away for the whole midyear break.”

“It’s a very important conference, Mum,” Joanna replied with a resigned shrug, defending his decision while ignoring the probe into her private feelings about Brad.

“I thought he might have asked you to go with him,” her mother commented wistfully.

“Not appropriate.”

Unlike Rory, who wouldn’t have given a damn, Brad would never think of behaving in any way that might draw the censure of others. A discreet affair was one thing, advertising it quite another. Brad’s whole life had been governed by a rule book. Ten years in the navy had set a pattern of discipline he had taken straight into the education system. He was totally dependable. And predictable. Important assets in giving her a sense of security, Joanna assured herself.

“Well, you are on his staff,” her mother said, piqued into justifying her personal wishes by the abrupt tone of her daughter’s reply.

“The conference is for the principals of private schools, Mum. Not the teachers. Brad will be busy politicking the whole time. You know they want to press the government for bigger subsidies next year.”

“Yes, but surely they have some time off for socialising,” her mother argued.

“It wouldn’t look good for Brad to have me there,” Joanna explained. “I’m not his wife. And Brad is far too ambitious to put a foot out of line.”

Brad had his eye on the headmastership of a more prestigious private school on the other side of Sydney. Relatively young, at thirty-eight, full of drive and energy, a charismatic leader to both pupils and parents, he had a better than even chance of winning the position when it fell vacant at the end of next year.

“There’s nothing wrong with ambition, Joanna.”

The terse note in her mother’s voice drew her gaze. Their eyes clashed for one unguarded moment, and Joanna knew her mother was thinking of Rory and his grievous lack of what Fay Harding recognised as proper ambition. It was her dogmatic opinion that trying out new ideas had no solid substance and could only be regarded as suspicious business.

Joanna neutralised the dangerous ground with a bland reply. “I didn’t say there was anything wrong with ambition, Mum.”

End of argument, if it could be called an argument. For the sake of peace between them, Rory’s name was never spoken. Joanna had made that rule when she had come back home.

Her widowed mother had needed help at the time. Her recovery after an operation on a faulty heart valve was slow, and her more favoured daughter, Jessica, had had her hands full with a new baby. Since Joanna had parted from Rory, it was easier for her to step in, easy to stay, even after her mother had regained her full strength and was perfectly capable of coping alone.

Moving to a place of her own would have required thought and effort, and Joanna couldn’t summon the interest to bother. Nothing seemed to matter after her break-up with Rory. Apart from which, her mother’s home in Burwood was convenient to the school in Strathfield where Joanna taught.

It was easier to live from day to day in a relatively undemanding routine, easy to sink into an emotional limbo where not even her mother’s narrow attitudes irritated her. On a superficial level they were company for each other. Besides, after the seven-year rift caused by her marriage to Rory, the reconciliation with her mother was comforting, taking the edge off her loneliness.

It was Brad who had lifted her out of the passivity she had fallen into, giving her a more active interest in life. A positive focus. He was good for her. Good to her, as well. They shared the day-to-day happenings at the school, played tennis at weekends, went to concerts and plays together.

He might not be a madly exciting lover, but Brad was offering her the problem-free security she had never had in her first marriage. This looking back to what she had once shared with Rory was stupid, yet she had been doing it continually ever since Brad had left for the conference.

It had to stop.

Her mother rose from the table and took her breakfast things to the sink.

“I’ll do the washing up after I’ve eaten, Mum,” Joanna quickly offered. “It’ll give you a few more minutes with Jessica before she leaves for tennis,” she added with a persuasive smile.

Her mother returned a fond look, not really for Joanna. It was more in thought of her other daughter, who was the light of her life. Jessica had done everything right, especially marrying a dentist who was a professional man. He was also a pillar of rectitude in providing a good home for his wife and being a splendid husband and father.

“I really enjoy my day with the children,” her mother said.

And why not? Joanna thought with dry irony. She had two beautiful granddaughters to spoil while Jessica played tennis, and the little girls were already moulded into the kind of little girls their grandmother approved of. Joanna idly wondered how well her mother would handle a rambunctious little boy.

“Give them my love,” she said, encouraging her mother to be on her way.

She was already dressed to go in a smart forest-green pant-suit. Her pearl brooch was precisely positioned at the throat of her beige blouse, pearl earrings in her lobes. There was not a hair out of place in the short white waves that framed her face. Apart from lipstick, which she would undoubtedly apply at the hall mirror near the front door, her make-up was perfectly in place. Fay Harding judged others on appearance, and never would she drop her own standards, not even to mind children.

How she had hated Rory in his scruffy university clothes! And the unshaven stubble that he hadn’t bothered about before calling by to see Joanna!

“Have a nice day, dear.”

“I will, Mum,” Joanna replied with no inner conviction whatsoever.

As she waited to hear the front door closing behind her mother, Joanna considered various plans of action. The telephone directory would give her the information she needed, but if she called Rory, he would undoubtedly take savage satisfaction in reminding her of her last words to him, that they had nothing more to say to each other.

He would hang up on her with the same relentless decisiveness she had displayed in showing him to the door out of her life after their last bitter showdown before the divorce went through.

Besides, she did not want to talk to him. Seeing him would serve her purpose, and the more impersonally she could achieve that, the better. The best place would definitely be in his office. Surely she could work out some way to finagle a few private minutes with him. She mentally practised some lines to justify such a visit.

No grudges, Rory. I’m getting married again. I hope you’ll find someone you can be happy with, too.

The decisive door click of her mother’s departure spurred Joanna into action. She looked up the market research listings in the telephone directory and had no difficulty in finding the company she was looking for. She circled the number, noted down the new business address in Chatswood and paused to wonder if that was an up-market or down-market move from Rory’s last premises in North Sydney. Had his business grown or slumped since the divorce?

With an impatient shake of the head, Joanna dismissed this irrelevant speculation. She was not interested in what had happened to Rory. Or why. She simply wanted to see him one more time. That was all. The question she needed answered was whether or not he was at his office today.

Having thought her way around the problem for several minutes, Joanna dialled the number, intent on playing whatever response she got by ear.

“Grayson and Associates,” a woman’s voice piped cheerfully. “How can I help you?”

“Is Mr. Grayson in today?” Joanna asked.

“Who’s calling, please?”

That put Joanna on the spot. Giving her name would almost certainly defeat her purpose. A wild invention leapt into her mind.

“I’m calling for Mr. Kawowski of Matchmakers Incorporated,” she rattled out, wondering if it was some kind of Freudian slip to think of a fabricated dating service as a means to get to Rory. “He wants to know if Mr. Grayson would be free to see him later this morning.”

“Mr. Grayson is in a meeting right now. Can I ring back to confirm?”

“Would you hold on a moment?” Joanna counted to ten then said, “Sorry. Mr. Kawowski has decided to use another company. Thank you for your time.”

She put down the receiver and heaved a sigh of relief. Mission accomplished. No more shillyshallying over the past or the future. Her course of action was decided. Rory Grayson was about to receive an unexpected visitor.

CHAPTER TWO

THE ULTRA-MODERN office building in Chatswood was impressive, but Joanna was not certain it was an up-market move for Rory until she arrived on the floor occupied by his company. When they parted three years ago, he was managing everything himself with a casual staff of five. One glance at the layout of his present premises told her that his business had greatly expanded.

From the reception room, a glass-panelled wall revealed a veritable hive of industry. A huge open area was broken into partitioned computer cubicles with people busy in all of those she could see. At the far end was a row of more private offices for executive staff.

Joanna could not help marvelling over the evident success of Rory’s idea to provide qualitative as well as quantitative market research. Statistics, he had been convinced, did not supply an accurate enough picture. The reasons behind the statistics, why people did what they did, had to be known, as well. Apparently his theory had not only found many receptive ears, but had proven more accurate or effective in application than more traditional ways of collecting information.

Somehow that knowledge undermined Joanna’s confidence as she approached the receptionist’s desk. Rory had grown far past the situation they had known and lived together. Not that such a factor should affect her purpose in any way, Joanna sternly told herself. She had simply come to see him. However, it might not be as easy as she had first thought, given this new set-up.

“Good morning.” The receptionist looked at her with bright anticipation. She had the fresh young face of a woman barely out of her teens. Not someone with a lot of experience at fobbing off people, Joanna hoped.

“Good morning,” she returned, projecting a completely at-ease smile to cover her inner tension. It was almost afternoon. It had seemed best to arrive just before twelve o’clock, giving Rory time to finish his meeting but ensuring he had not yet gone out for lunch. Now she had to ascertain if her timing was right. “I’ve come to see Mr. Grayson,” she announced.

“Your name, please?” The receptionist glanced down at an appointment pad.

“I don’t have an appointment. Is he free at the moment? It’s a personal matter that won’t take long.”

This information earned a frown. “If you’ll give me your name, I’ll check with Mr. Grayson.”

And that would be the end of that, Joanna thought grimly. Giving her name was too risky. “I have a better idea,” she said, her eyes flashing with what she hoped looked like flirtatious mischief. “If you’ll lend me your pad and pen, I’ll write him a note and you can take it to him. I’m sure when he reads it he’ll make time to see me.”

The receptionist hesitated, clearly finding the suggestion irregular and the situation suspicious. Joanna confidently reached out for the items she’d asked for. Capitulation came after a few uncertain moments. As Joanna poised the pen to write, she could feel the young woman’s eyes roving over her in intense speculation.

Her mind was rife with questions. What were the best words to provoke Rory’s interest? Was the receptionist comparing her to some other woman in his personal life? Or—her heart clenched—his wife? Rory might have remarried. Why hadn’t she thought of that? And why did she feel such a cramp of revulsion at such an idea? She didn’t care what Rory did. He had killed her caring years ago.

An idea finally came to her, and she quickly wrote the words.

Success must feel sweet. Congratulations, Rory.

It was an objective comment, fair-minded, without rancour, hopefully ego-stroking enough to persuade Rory into seeing her for a moment or two. After all, the most sensible, rational thing to do was to expunge any lingering acrimony between them before moving on with their lives.

She added her signature, tore off the note page, folded it, handed it to the receptionist with a confident smile, put down the pen and turned aside as though considering sitting in one of the leather armchairs to wait.

She heard the receptionist leave the office. Nervous anticipation fluttered through Joanna’s stomach. She forcefully assured herself it had nothing to do with Rory or what he might think of her visit. It was perfectly natural to be on edge. The moment of truth and decision was at hand.

Now that she saw how well he had done for himself without her, Joanna was glad she had taken pains to look her best. Rory might scorn the superficiality of appearances, but Joanna didn’t care about that. Pride demanded that he see she was doing fine by herself. More than that. Another man found her a very desirable asset to his life, and not just any other man, either. A highly eligible and discriminating one.

The sage-green knit suit she wore had border stripes of peach on the sleeves, the tunic and around the hem of the skirt. The effect was soft, feminine and elegant. The colour picked up the grey-green of her eyes, and she had matched the exact shade of sage in her high-heeled pumps and leather handbag.

She had spent an hour washing and blow-drying her long blonde hair so that it fell in soft waves around her shoulders, and her feathery fringe had a sweeping flyaway look on both sides of her face. Her make-up was faultless, a touch of silvery green on her eyelids, a grey pencil line to increase interest in the shape and width of her eyes, a subtle shading of blusher highlighting her cheekbones and a deeper shade of peach emphasising the sensual curves of her full-lipped mouth.

Although she was almost ten years older than when she had first met Rory, Joanna prided herself on having a dignity and sophistication that more than made up for any fresh-faced prettiness she might have lost. She had also regained her best weight. Rory could not fling the accusation of being anorexic at her now. The firm roundness of her curves attested to her good health and well-being.

Not that she had ever been truly anorexic. The emotional stress of the divorce had simply robbed her of any appetite. It was hard to enjoy food or anything else when all one could feel was a soul-tearing sense of failure. But she had survived and risen above all that. If she could finally put Rory behind her today, she could feel whole again, her own person, free to accept Brad as the man to share her future with.

Joanna swung around expectantly as she heard the receptionist entering her office. The young woman stood at her opened door, eyeing Joanna with blatant curiosity as she said, “Mr. Grayson will see you now. I’ll take you to him.”

“Thank you,” Joanna replied, more loudly than she meant to.

The prospect of facing Rory, now that it was upon her, had an appalling effect. Her pulse leapt into a wild beat that throbbed through her temples, making her head feel like a buzz-saw. Her stomach could have been a pancake being flipped over by a deft chef who enjoyed showing off his dexterity. Her legs, as she followed the receptionist, alternated between wooden pegs and quivering jelly. It took a supreme act of will to force her mind into reciting, Rory means nothing to me. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

They walked the whole length of the cubicled area, eyes looking up, assessing Joanna as she passed by. Rory’s office was in the corner at the far end, and it was a relief to Joanna to reach it. The receptionist ushered her inside. Joanna was vaguely aware of the door being closed behind her, ensuring the privacy of the meeting, but the man in front of her claimed her attention with such devastating impact that she knew instantly she had been a fool to come.

“Joanna...” he said softly, as though he took pleasure in the sound of her name, not a trace of surprise in his voice or his eyes.

“Rory...” she managed to reply, her voice a bare, husky whisper.

He made no move towards her, gave no invitation for her to sit down and be at ease. Joanna was not really aware of the omission of standard politeness. She stared at him, and he stared right back at her in a silence that swirled with the painful bitterness of unfulfilled dreams and hopes and desires.

Joanna had never seen Rory like this, so elegantly dressed in a finely tailored three-piece suit, the sheen of some silk mixture in the cloth. Its subtle blue-grey colour and the blue and gold silk tie picked up the intense blueness of his eyes. His thick black hair had been stylishly layered to its natural waves, the riotous curls cut out of existence. It was a tamed image of the young man she had known and married, yet she sensed a self-assurance with it, an aura of control that was more dangerous than any overt rebellion against social standards.

This was a man who knew who he was, who used outer trappings to his advantage because it suited his purpose to be seen as a successful businessman. It had nothing to do with ego or status. The flash of cynicism in his eyes as he noted her surprise told Joanna that. Underneath his suit and haircut, he was still the Rory who thought for himself, disdaining any influence by others.

Even his casual pose reflected that. If he’d wanted to impress her with his new affluence, he probably would have been sitting in the high-backed leather chair behind the expensive executive desk, but he was half sitting on the front edge of the desk, one leg stretched down to the floor, the other hitched up, dangling carelessly.

The hand resting on his raised thigh held her note. He lifted it, drawing her attention to what she had written.

“I can’t believe you care whether or not I find success sweet. What do you want of me, Joanna?”

His mouth curved into a sensual little smile as his gaze dropped to rove down her body, making her uncomfortably aware of his intimate knowledge of it and the pleasure he had once taken in giving her pleasure. Her skin tingled as though he had caressed it, and her lungs stopped breathing as his eyes bored through the figure-hugging knit fabric, remembering the shape of her, the feel of her, all the secrets of her femininity that were no secret to him.

“You’re wrong on both counts,” she said quickly. “I am glad your ideas worked out so well. And I don’t want anything of you, Rory.”

His eyes lingered for a moment on the heave of her breasts before lifting to hers, a direct challenge in their vivid blueness. He raised one of his rakishly arched eyebrows, a mocking invitation for her to explain why she was here.

“I wanted to see you,” she blurted out, her cheeks stinging with a rush of heat she could not control.

His mouth twisted with irony. “You thought the best way was to remind me of what you believed meant more to me than our marriage?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t come to rake over old arguments.”

“Does success make me sweeter for you, Joanna?”

“No.” Her cheeks burnt even more fiercely at his insulting suggestion. “I’m not chasing after you, Rory.”

He gave a harsh laugh. “Of course not. A woman of principle like yourself wouldn’t bend that far. I was the one who did the chasing after you. It was you who showed me to your mother’s door, demanding that I never darken it again.”

He let the memory simmer between them before he added, “I simply find it intriguing that you now darken mine. Do you want the money you so proudly and bitterly refused from me then?”

The sting of this reminder evoked the passionate hatred of him she had felt that night. He had come with a cheque, offering her repayment of all the money it had cost her to support him while he was trying to make a go of his fledgling business. As though money could buy back her love after he had betrayed it with Bernice!

She glared at him with stormy eyes. “I didn’t marry you for money and I didn’t divorce you for money. I came to tell you I’m getting married to someone else.”

She saw his jaw tighten, saw the taunting light fade from his eyes, leaving them empty of all expression. There was a crackle of paper as his fingers crunched her note into a tight ball in his hand. He stood up, tall and straight and suddenly formidable in the clothes of his successful thrust into the world of commerce. He stepped around his desk and pointedly dropped the screwed-up paper into a bin. Then he faced her with a viciously mocking smile.

“So what can I do for you, Joanna? Write you a reference? To whom it may concern? I have known Joanna Harding intimately for a period of...now, how long was it, exactly? As I recall, you were nineteen when I—”

“Stop it, Rory!”

“Something wrong with my memory?”

“I don’t need a reference.” She lifted her chin in disdain of his demeaning summary of their time together. “Brad thinks I’m wonderful as I am.”

“Brad...” He drawled the name as though measuring it for destruction. “Now where have I heard Brad before? Oh, yes! He was the wet-behind-the-ears hero in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, wasn’t he?”

Joanna dragged in a deep breath to calm her churning insides. Her eyes flashed scorn at the cruel injustice of Rory’s attitude. “I thought we could be civilised after all this time apart.”

He laughed at her, his eyes glittering with primitive violence. “I have never felt civilised around you, Joanna.”

“I thought we could let bygones be bygones,” she persisted, clutching at dignity as a defence against the way his eyes were stripping her bare, reminding her of the wildness he had tapped in her sexuality, the mad mating they had once revelled in without any inhibitions.

“Can you forget what we had together?” he taunted.

“I wanted to wish you well, Rory,” she forced out in determination to have done with this chaotically disturbing scene.

“How magnanimous of you! Is it better with Brad?”

The cheap shot goaded her into retaliating. “There’s more to life than sex, Rory Grayson. It’s a pity you haven’t found that out. It means that whatever relationships you have will always fail.”

His expression changed, a bleak fatigue drawing older lines on his face. “Wrong, Joanna,” he said flatly. “I happen to be very good at relationships. Genuine relationships. Not ones that are screwed up by expectations that can’t always be met when you want them met.”

Shock turned into anger as Joanna digested Rory’s perception of what had gone wrong in their marriage. He was blaming her for its failure, as though he hadn’t contributed a hundredfold to the breakdown of any healing communication between them.

“Have you fathered any children I don’t know about?” she fired at him with bitter venom. “Or do all your casual bed mates have convenient miscarriages?”

“Does your mother still ride a broomstick?” he shot back at her. “Force-feed you with poison pellets of hatred for me?”

“Leave my mother out of this!”

“Then leave my alleged affairs out, as well!”

“Right! Pardon me for mentioning them. They have long since ceased to be any of my business.”

“Why don’t you admit your real reason for coming, Joanna? Have a bit of self-honesty for once.”

“I’ve already told you,” she snapped.

He shook his head. “Hypocritical nonsense. You came to see if you were free of me. Because you weren’t sure. And you had to know. A last throw of the dice before you married Brad. So let me clear your mind for you.”

“How?” The word slipped out before she realised it was an admission.

Rory seized the opening, a look of dangerous dev-ilment replacing the derisive challenge of a few moments ago. He started walking towards her, unshakeable purpose in every step. “A kiss for the bride-to-be,” he said with a smile that torpedoed her stand of indifference to him.

“No.” Her hand fluttered up to her throat as she frantically fought a rush of panic.

“A wish-you-well kiss from your ex-husband,” Rory went on. “Make of it what you will, but kissed you certainly shall be.”

She took a defensive step backwards.

“What have you to fear if you’re free of me, Joanna?” he taunted. “Call it a gesture of final release. A graceful goodbye, demonstrating that bygones really are bygones and there’s not a thing left between us. Not a jot. Not a speck. Not a molecule of feeling. Prove it to me that there’s nothing left.”

He was using her own words against her, all so irrefutably reasonable that it robbed her of any grounds to protest. She swallowed hard and came up with a burst of defiance. “I don’t have to prove anything to you!”

“Then prove it to yourself.”

He took the hand at her throat and placed it on his shoulder as he slid his other arm around her waist and scooped her hard against the long, lean power of his body. Joanna was shocked into passivity by a rush of warm feeling, a sense of rightness that seemed so treacherous she trembled in fear of what it meant. Long-standing familiarity, her mind screamed, fiercely rejecting any other cause for the sensation of being where she belonged.

Then his lips were on hers, gently grazing, not forcing any rough mastery over her, allowing her a choice of accepting his kiss or evading it. Rory had always been good at kissing, but his expertise in every act of love had aroused only hostility in her towards the end of their marriage. She told herself it was only curiosity that compelled her lips to move to the persuasive pressure of his, to open to the seductive caress of his tongue. She closed her eyes, needing to concentrate on examining the feelings he stirred now, to sort them out to her satisfaction, to prove...

All coherent thought was lost as Rory deepened the kiss, and Joanna’s mind flooded with vibrant sensation. It was an invasion of all her deeply nursed defences against him, a shattering of bitterly held convictions, and it ignited a wild urge to make him experience the same inner turbulence.

Her mouth claimed his with a passionate intensity that sparked a response from him that spun them both out of any semblance of control. Her fingers dug into his hair, holding his head to hers. His hand splayed over the small of her back, arching her into intimate knowledge of the desire she was stirring.

A mad wave of exultation swept through Joanna. She wanted to goad him as he had goaded her, make him burn with the memories of all there had been between them, get under his skin in a way that defeated all the clever reasoning he could come up with.

She moved her body against his in deliberate incitement, recklessly uncaring of any consequences. An animal sound growled from his throat as he wrenched his mouth from hers. She opened her eyes to meet the raw blaze of searing questions in his, and whatever he read in them brought a heave of satisfaction and fast, decisive action.

He scooped Joanna off her feet and had her hugged against his chest in a whirl of male strength that left her gasping. He was heading for the door before she could collect her wits, then to compound the shock of what was happening the door opened and a woman stood there, gaping at them.

“You’ll have to stand aside, Monique. You’re in my way,” Rory instructed.

Monique either defied him or was too stunned to obey. She was a gorgeous brunette, with a beautiful face framed by cascades of wild curls and a fantastic figure poured into a brilliant fuchsia suit. She was not the kind of woman who was used to being told to stand aside, Joanna thought, particularly by men. Her look of utter bewilderment caused Joanna’s eyes to narrow suspiciously. Where did this woman fit into Rory’s life?

It shocked Joanna to realise she felt as jealous of Rory as he must have felt about her with Brad. It had to be a hangover of possessiveness from their marriage. It couldn’t have anything to do with loving.

“What are you doing?” the brunette finally found voice enough to ask.

“I’m abducting my ex-wife. Move aside and let us pass,” came the firm command from Rory.

Monique backed out, looking dazedly at Joanna as Rory carried her from the office. “Your ex-wife,” she repeated limply, then fired herself with purpose. “What about our dinner tomorrow night?”

“My apologies. There’s no telling how long I’ll be gone. Wife-napping is a time-consuming business,” Rory tossed at her without the slightest hesitation as he set off striding past the row of computer cubicles.

Joanna felt a totally wanton sense of elation at this dismissal of the beautiful brunette’s claims on him until she noticed the commotion Rory’s progress was causing amongst his employees. Heads were popping up everywhere.

“Put me down,” she commanded, taking swift stock of her position, which was extremely ambivalent, to say the least.

He ignored her and raised his voice to all those agog with interest. “One thing I want done while I’m away, and you can all get onto it. I want that Kawowski of Matchmakers Incorporated found and pinned down to a contract. We’ve never lost a customer yet, and we’re not going to start now. Is that clear?”

There was a chorus of “yes, sir”, while Joanna writhed between guilt and embarrassment. Impossible to admit to her fabrication about Mr. Kawowski in front of all these people, yet how could she let them waste so much time in looking for someone who didn’t exist? The dilemma was too much for her to cope with, and in the overall picture it was a minor detail. They would soon find out there was no such person.

“Let me go, Rory!” she cried, trying to push out of his hold.

His arms tightened around her, clamping her against him. “You and I need to be together, Joanna.”

“You can’t kidnap me. You’ve got no right! I’m not your wife any more.”

“The divorce was your idea, not mine.”

“That’s irrelevant. I won’t let you carry me off. Call the police!” she demanded of the onlookers.

“Yes, call the police!” Rory agreed. “But give me half an hour’s head start first. I’ll give them a merry chase after that. If I can’t get the story spread across the newspapers for all the world and Brad to read, my name’s not Rory Grayson.”

Joanna had sudden visions of Brad at his conference, with all his respected peers, being severely embarrassed by sensational tabloid stories about the woman he wanted to marry. “Don’t call the police!” she yelled.

“You heard the lady. Don’t call the police,” Rory reiterated strongly.

She thumped him on the back in furious frustration. “You’re ruining my life again.”

“Well, we might as well be ruined together,” he blithely replied. “That’s only fair. Will someone please open the door for me and summon an elevator?”

With the way cleared ahead of him, he strode into the reception room with Joanna still in his captivity.

“Mr. Grayson!” the young woman behind the desk called after him, her voice on the edge of hysteria. She had never witnessed such a scene before and was totally lost as to how to act. She wrung her hands. “Your appointments, Mr. Grayson! What will I do?”

“Postpone them until further notice.”

“But what will I say?”

“Say I’m off for the dirtiest weekend that any man could hope to have. That’ll satisfy everybody.”

He swept into the waiting elevator, pressed a button and grinned with wicked satisfaction as the doors slid shut.

CHAPTER THREE

AS THE ELEVATOR hummed downwards, Joanna’s mind reeled around Rory’s outrageous presumption in hauling her off with him, the indignity he had subjected her to in doing so, the scandalous proof that he still didn’t care what anybody thought of him and the terrible truth that she had instigated the whole chain of events by not freezing him off when he kissed her.

“This won’t do you one bit of good, Rory Grayson!” she said in his ear, letting him know she was not about to fall under the spell of his wild and irrepressible nature again.

“It’s done me a power of good already,” he said cheerfully.

“I was only getting back at you with that kiss.”

“If that was revenge, Joanna, I found it very sweet. The magic is still there for us. As strong as ever.”

“I am not going to have a dirty weekend with you.”

“Tell me about Brad, and why you’re going to marry him.”

The elevator doors rolled open and Rory strode into a basement garage while Joanna whirled through another bout of confusion. She should take pleasure in telling Rory how perfect Brad was for her, but she didn’t want to. She no longer knew what she wanted. Somehow Rory had turned everything upside down, including her.

At last he set her on her feet, and Joanna found herself standing beside the passenger door of a sage-green Jaguar, almost the exact colour of her suit. Rory liked green. Always had. But since when had he been able to afford such an expensive car?

Bemused by his sudden rise to wealth, Joanna did not think of trying a getaway. Rory unlocked the door and opened it before she realised he wasn’t holding her captive anymore. He stood back from her, one hand on the door, the other gesturing an open invitation to choose her own course. He spoke quietly, seriously, his whole manner in marked contrast to all that had gone before.

“You may find this difficult to believe, Joanna, but I want you to be happy. I thought I was the man you could best be happy with. Even when things were wrong between us, I still felt we were right for each other, right in a way that I’ve never felt with anyone else.”

He paused, searching her eyes for a similar admission, some hint of vulnerability to what he was saying, but Joanna stubbornly resisted giving him any concession. If she gave Rory an inch he would take a mile. Yet his words did strike a deeply buried chord in her heart. She had believed that, too. Until he betrayed her faith in the worst possible way.

He gave her a wry smile. “I can’t go back and do things differently. If I’m not the man you can be happy with, then I want to know that Brad is. So long as I know you’ll be happy with him, Joanna, I can let bygones be bygones. But if you’re not sure about marrying him...”

“I didn’t say that,” she cut in swiftly, defensively.

“Joanna, there’s no engagement ring on your finger.”

Her eyes flashed defiance of this superficial judgement. “You didn’t give me a ring.”

“In those days I couldn’t afford what I wanted to give you. Is that the case with Brad?”

She grimaced in vexation at being pinned down. “He’s away at the moment. When he comes back...”

“So this is decision time. And you came to me for help.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Joanna.” He reached out and took her hand, his long, lean fingers curling around hers, stroking them, lightly pressing their persuasion. “Remember how we used to talk? Tell each other everything? No holding back?”

“That was before,” she protested, her eyes flashing with the pain he had given her. Yet she didn’t tug her hand out of his. Somehow it triggered good memories, of when her love for Rory had been young and innocent and full of joy.

“I have no wish to rake over old arguments, either,” he said softly. “We’ll talk about the future. Your future. How you want it to be. How you see it with Brad. As you say, you don’t have to prove anything to me, Joanna, but come with me now and prove whatever you need to prove to yourself. Conclusively. That is what you want, isn’t it?”

She stared at their linked hands, feeling his warmth and his strength and desperately wanting what he was offering. Could she trust him to do what he said? She lifted her gaze, meeting his in fearful uncertainty. “You’ll let me go free whenever I want to, Rory?”

“Whenever you want to,” he promised, the steady blaze of his blue eyes giving her the assurance she needed.

She heaved a sigh to relieve her pent-up turmoil. The voice of hard-learnt cynicism told her it was still a risk to go with him. He undoubtedly meant to take advantage of her compliance, one way or another. Nevertheless, he had to know that force wouldn’t get him any lasting advantage. He had already changed tack on that score. So what harm could it do to spend an hour or two with him? If it clarified her feelings, it would be time well spent.

“All right. I’ll come with you. For a while,” she said warily.

He smiled, a happy, lilting smile that transmitted unbounded joy, the kind of smile Rory used to give her long ago, enveloping her in his pleasure. Joanna’s heart gave a kick, sending a tingle of excited anticipation through her veins as she stepped into his car and settled herself into the low-slung passenger seat. Rory closed the door and moved quickly around to the driver’s side, as though he could not contain an eager exhilaration at the prospect of being with her again.

Joanna deliberately kept her gaze averted from him as he settled himself in the seat beside her. How she could find him so compellingly attractive was deeply worrying. Reawakened sexual chemistry. That’s all it could be. The years apart had somehow corroded the hurts that had formed a protective shield around her.

She had proved she could live without Rory, although existing was probably the more accurate word to describe most of her life since she had left him. Nevertheless, it was paramount she remember these dangerously wayward feelings couldn’t be trusted. It was time she concentrated on the problem that had brought her here, whether or not she could ever give herself wholeheartedly to Brad.

Her head told her Brad Latham was a good, dependable man who would never give her the terrible pain that Rory had. She liked him very much. They had a lot of interests in common. And while liking wasn’t love, Joanna didn’t trust love anymore. Love could lead one badly astray.

But what about sharing Brad’s bed for the rest of her life? Sex with him was pleasant enough. Fine, really. She had honestly believed she would never feel passionate desire again, yet Rory still aroused it, throwing all her sensible reasoning into chaos. If she married Brad, would she always be haunted with memories of what lovemaking had been like with Rory?

She probably shouldn’t be using Rory as some kind of yardstick. To Rory, sex was one of the pleasures in life to be enjoyed whenever and wherever the urge occurred. And the urge had occurred once too often, Joanna savagely reminded herself. At the wrong time, in the wrong place and with the wrong woman. One thing she was certain of in her own mind—Brad would never be unfaithful to her.

The powerful engine of the sports car throbbed into life. Joanna watched Rory’s hands slide around the steering wheel as he directed the Jaguar out of the garage and onto the road. He obviously enjoyed the feel of power under his touch. He was a tactile person, sensitive to the tiniest vibration, attuned to responding to it. Joanna wondered if Monique knew that.

“So tell me about Brad. What’s he like? Handsome? Physically attractive?”

“Yes.”

Not in the same traffic-stopping class as Monique, but Joanna was not about to tell Rory that. Besides, Brad was handsome. While his strong, clean-cut features had none of the rakish charm of Rory’s more dramatic individuality, nor the mischievous twinkle in his eyes, he was certainly good-looking. Everyone thought so.

“That’s not very forthcoming, Joanna,” Rory chided. “Tell me what he’s like.”

“He’s not a taker like you,” she shot at him in a burst of resentment. “He gives a lot of himself. He cares about people.”

“A sterling character,” Rory drawled. “What does he do for a living?”

“He’s the headmaster of—”

“Oh, no, no, no!” Rory rolled his eyes at her. “Don’t tell me this is true. Not a headmaster. Not after me. Headmasters are dull, conventional people.”

“Brad is not dull. He’s a go-getter and very progressive. Which is why he’s the headmaster of a prestigious private school.”

“Worse!” Rory groaned. “How could you even think of throwing your lot in with a stuffy, narrow-minded, elitist snob of the worst kind? To go from me to such a man...” He shook his head. “It’s not only insulting to me, it belittles you.”

“Stop the car and let me out,” Joanna commanded tersely.

“Not on this downbeat note. We haven’t got to where we’re going to yet.”

“I’m not having you criticising someone you don’t know anything about.”

“Put it down as a minor outburst of irritation and annoyance.” He threw her a smile of apologetic appeal. “I simply can’t bear to think of you putting yourself into a straitjacket for the rest of your life. That might suit your mother, Joanna, but—”

“I thought we agreed to leave my mother out of this.”

“You told me you didn’t want to live like your mother, always thinking of what others think of you.” He cast her a look of concern. “That’s how you’d have to be, married to the headmaster of a private school, Joanna. No putting a foot wrong. No letting your hair down. Dressed to the nines all the time. Like Caesar’s wife. Beyond reproach.”

“Better than being Nero’s wife, not knowing whose bed he was coming from,” she sniped.

Rory sighed deeply. “Now is that being reasonable, hitting me below the belt, unfairly, I might add, when I’m doing my best to be helpful? What happened to bygones being bygones?”

“You brought my mother into it.”

“Hard to keep her out of it when she must be promoting this match as though it was made in heaven,” came the dry reply.

In all honesty, Joanna could not deny that. She bit her lips and brooded for a few moments before her mind retrieved the claim by Rory that she had hit him below the belt unfairly with her shot about adultery. Was he still trying to deny what he’d done? While she couldn’t prove he had been unfaithful with more than one woman, one was quite enough for Joanna.

What had hurt most at that killing moment of revelation was that she herself had been trying to get pregnant for months. Not that Rory had known that. He had wanted to wait until they were financially on their feet before starting a family. Having a baby had been her decision, a desperate bid to rekindle the intimacy they had lost in endless arguments about what they should be doing and where they should be heading. For Rory to have had sex with another woman and impregnate her was a double betrayal.

Joanna could never forgive it. And she wasn’t about to forget it, either, no matter what Rory said, or did, or how he made her feel. Time did not mitigate some offences. Rory might be able to prove that Brad was the wrong man for her, but that didn’t make him the right one.

Her attention was caught by the view of beach and sea as the car turned into a street that led to them. “Where are we?” she asked, realising she had taken no notice of direction from the time they had left the office building in Chatswood.

“Dee Why,” Rory answered.

It was one of a string of beaches running north from the head of Sydney Harbour, but that was as much as Joanna knew about Dee Why. She had never been here.

“This is where I live now,” Rory added, turning the car into a driveway lined with palm trees and artistic clumps of other tropical plants. It led to a row of private garages, separated by white brick archways.

Expensive architecture. Expensive landscaping. It fitted with the expensive car, yet Joanna had difficulty in coming to terms with this new image of Rory. “You’re taking me to your home?” she questioned sharply, struggling to accept the evidence that Rory could now afford the luxury of living in what was clearly a block of very expensive apartments.

“I’d like you to see it.”

He threw her a grin that somehow reflected the intimate understanding they had once shared. Joanna’s heart did a treacherous jig. While she was still berating herself for being ridiculously affected by what could only be a memory, Rory parked the car and alighted.

Joanna sat in a feverish quandary as he walked around to the passenger side. She had serious doubts about the wisdom of being alone with Rory in his home. The more sensible course was to demand they go somewhere else. Considering the effect of Rory’s grin on her, probably the most sensible course was to leave him right now before he managed to confuse and disturb her any further with the powerful attraction he evoked with increasing ease.

Yet an irresistible tug of curiosity undermined all common sense. She wanted to know how Rory lived now. When he opened her door, Joanna found herself stepping out and saying nothing.

Rory led her into a grand foyer where there were elevators and a staircase. The patterned mosaic of tiles on the floor had the stamp of class. A fountain streaming over an artistic arrangement of modern sculptures made its statement, as well. Wherever Joanna looked, money, and lots of it, screamed at her.

Rory smiled as he ushered her into an elevator, his blue eyes dancing wickedly with the memory of their last elevator ride.

“Don’t try it,” she warned.

“Perish the thought.”

He pressed a button and linked his hands behind his back in an unholy demonstration of harmless innocence, while the smile stretched into an irrepressible and madly tantalising grin.

If he thought these accoutrements of wealth were going to change her opinion of him, he could think again, Joanna determined in bitter resolve. Money was not going to change one thing between them. It hadn’t swayed her judgement in the past and it wasn’t going to sway it now. Only the person counted, not what he or she had in material possessions.

Nevertheless, as they rode up to the top floor, Joanna had the uneasy realisation she felt more acutely alive than she had for a very long time. It was as though every nerve in her body was tingling with awareness, and every sense was tuned to the vitality emanating from her ex-husband.

It made her ask herself why she never felt like this with Brad. The answer came all too swiftly. Brad was safe and completely predictable. Almost boringly predictable. Rory might be many things, but he had never, ever, been boring. He provoked extremes of feeling as naturally as he breathed.

What she had to keep reminding herself was that many of those extremes were bad, so bad that in the end she couldn’t live with them. And that was why Brad was better for her. There was probably a penalty for every choice one made in life, Joanna decided, and boring was definitely easier to live with than bad. At least she always knew where she was with Brad Latham.

Despite this furious reasoning, the rest of Joanna did not demonstrate any sense of conviction. Both physically and emotionally she was experiencing an alarmingly high degree of anticipation, which heightened further when Rory led her out of the elevator and into his apartment. Was she such a foolish masochist she enjoyed putting herself in danger with Rory Grayson? Joanna wondered.

Her feet stopped dead at the entrance to Rory’s living room, and all the churning mental activity came to an abrupt end. In front of her was the re-creation of the picture she had once cut out of the Home Beautiful magazine, the picture she had shown Rory as her ideal dream living room. And it was all here, perfect in every detail, stunningly mind-blowing in its fantastic reality.

The cedar ceiling, glazed Chinese sandstone on the floor, terracotta leather lounges, white walls, Aboriginal paintings, Persian rugs, wonderful pots and urns with magnificent ferns spilling over them, a dining table of gleaming cedar, and the leather upholstered Italian chairs she had so admired, all of it flooded with light from huge expanses of glass facing the sea. Doors led out to a covered terrace where brightly cushioned cane furniture was set amongst potted palms and more greenery climbing around the archways that framed the view.

Nothing had been missed.

But how had Rory remembered it?

Had he kept the picture?

If so, why?

And why breathe life into her dream when it couldn’t mean anything anymore?

CHAPTER FOUR

“DID I GET IT RIGHT, Joanna?”

The soft question shivered through her. It was as though Rory was walking over the grave of their marriage, bringing it to life again. But it was dead. Dead! And Joanna didn’t know if it was terrible or wonderful, seeing this ghost of it in the fulfilment of one of her dreams.

She couldn’t look at him. She fought for a facade of indifference as she numbly accepted the glass of champagne he offered her. Her mind dazedly registered the fact he must have left her side to open a bottle, but she hadn’t been aware of it.

How much time had passed since her feet had faltered to a shocked halt? And why was Rory giving her champagne? Did he think he had cause to celebrate? Was he enjoying some ultimate sense of revenge in showing her that he now had what she had wanted?

“This must have cost you a fortune,” she said in a brittle voice, limply waving an arm to encompass the furnishings.

“The result was worth it, don’t you think?” he replied, still with that low throb of disturbing intimacy in his tone.

Joanna deliberately evaded giving a response, wary of revealing what she was feeling. Instead she asked, “How did you make so much money so quickly, Rory? It’s only been three years.”

“It’s because I can draw maps. Important maps. Or at least my computers can.”

“Maps?” Joanna frowned her bewilderment. “How is that connected to your market research?”

“With my demographic data bases, showing people’s requirements, I can demonstrate the most viable and strategic location where any business should be,” Rory answered matter-of-factly. “Do you realise how important it can be for a business to have that information?”

“Yes, but I still don’t understand how you could earn so much in so little time,” Joanna demurred, drawn into looking at him by his apparently blasé attitude towards his success.

His eyes gently derided the puzzlement in hers. “It’s not the time I spend on a job that’s important, Joanna. It’s the knowledge I have. A large corporation will spend half to a million dollars without blinking to access that data. It can mean the difference between failure and success. And I have a stranglehold on this market. I was the first into it, and no-one has been able to catch me.”

“So all the spadework paid off in the end,” she commented dryly.

His mouth twisted into a travesty of a smile. “Ironic, isn’t it? When we were married and together it was a struggle for me to survive in business from week to week. You had to support me. After you left me, it started to roll in in the millions, month after month.”

The open reference to their marriage stirred conflicting emotions. Joanna sought to hide them by lifting her glass of champagne in a toast to his achievements. “Congratulations, Rory. You’ve certainly done well for yourself.”

His eyes mocked the distance she was trying to keep between them. “Perhaps you did me a good service in walking out on me, Joanna. It concentrated my mind on making a success of something.”

“It must give you a lot of satisfaction,” she retorted lightly.

He lifted his glass and sipped the champagne before pointedly remarking, “Funny thing about money. When you don’t have it, you think it’s the answer to everything. When you’ve got more than you could ever possibly need, you find out there’s still something missing.”

Did he mean her?

She tore her gaze from the intense provocation in his and forced her legs to walk casually through the room. “But you must enjoy what you have here,” she said, indirectly seeking some clue to his feelings.

“Yes,” he answered, too briefly to reveal anything. He strolled past her, heading for a set of doors that led onto the terrace outside. “Sorry it’s such a grey day,” he tossed over his shoulder. “Normally this room is flooded with sunshine.”

To Joanna, it was a taunting reminder of what she had hated most about the apartment they had rented to keep living expenses to a minimum. The windows had been small and facing the wrong direction for any ray of sunshine to warm or cheer the place. She had stipulated to Rory that when they could afford to buy a home of their own, it had to have rooms with lots of sunshine coming in, and if possible, a view of...

“The view of the sea is better from out here,” he said, finishing her thought for her and gesturing an invitation to accompany him onto the terrace.

Joanna walked forward like an automaton, drawn almost against her will to see all there was to see, despite the inner torment it aroused. From the railing between the arches, there was a magnificent view of the sea and a long wide sweep of beach, as well. On a sunny day it would be glorious. Even now, with the sky overcast and threatening rain, it was still perfect to Joanna, precisely what she had dreamed of having.

“Geraniums,” Rory said, pointing to the ceramic pots near the railing. “Since it’s midwinter they’re not in flower right now, but that one over there is red, that one a sort of apricot, that one...”

He listed off the geraniums she had envisioned as adding to the Mediterranean look she’d favoured. How he had memorised them she did not know, but he had forgotten nothing. Then, as though he could command nature itself to do his bidding, the clouds parted and the sun beamed a brief benevolence on both of them. It was always like that with Rory, Joanna thought. The most surprising, unexpected and improbable things happened.

Again he gave her that heart-kicking smile, sharing a moment made specially for them, or so it seemed. Joanna was somehow incapable of resisting when he took her hand, enfolding it warmly in his. He drew her along the terrace, beyond the living room, past a cane and glass table setting that was positioned outside a curtained room, to the end of the last archway, where there was a rich profusion of potted palms and hanging baskets of ferns.

Then Rory showed her it wasn’t the last archway at all. There was another that was glassed in on three sides, and inside this part of the terrace was an even more mind-wrenching sight. The whole space was taken up by a huge spa bath, luxuriously set in richly veined green onyx with gold taps and crystal jars of bath oils around the wide ledges.

“To make you feel relaxed and pampered,” Rory murmured.

After we make love. That’s what she had said, imagining the jets of the spa shooting tingly bubbles over their sensitised flesh while they moved their bodies sensuously together in the scented flow of the bath.

“You can lie back and be soothed by the sight of tropical greenery, or watch the sea,” Rory continued softly. “At night you can see the stars. There are skylights specially built above the bath so you can look up and see the universe revolve if you want to stay there long enough.”

That was what he had added when she had described what would be heavenly to her. She remembered laughing in delight but never dreaming it could really be possible for them. A delicious fantasy, totally unrealistic, yet Rory had made it come true.

Tears pricked her eyes as an ungovernable well of emotion surged from her heart. It wasn’t fair, her mind cried. How could Rory do this when everything was over between them? As though in tune with the ache gathering inside her, there was a roll of thunder and the sunshine blinked out. Heavy drops of rain began to fall.

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